Mix design process of polyester polymer mortars modified with recycled GFRP waste materials

Abstract

a b s t r a c tIn this study, the effect of incorporation of recycled glass fibre reinforced plastics (GFRP) waste materials, obtained by means of shredding and milling processes, on mechanical behaviour of polyester polymer mortars (PM) was assessed. For this purpose, different contents of GFRP recyclates, between 4% up to 12% in weight, were incorporated into polyester PM materials as sand aggregates and filler replacements. The effect of the addition of a silane coupling agent to resin binder was also evaluated. Applied waste material was proceeding from the shredding of the leftovers resultant from the cutting and assembly processes of GFRP pultrusion profiles. Currently, these leftovers as well as non-conform products and scrap resulting from pultrusion manufacturing process are landfilled, with additional costs to producers and suppliers. Hence, besides the evident environmental benefits, a viable and feasible solution for these wastes would also conduct to significant economic advantages.Design of experiments and data treatment were accomplish by means of full factorial design approach and analysis of variance ANOVA. Experimental results were promising toward the recyclability of GFRP waste materials as partial replacement of aggregates and reinforcement for PM materials, with significant improvements on mechanical properties of resultant mortars with regards to waste-free formulations.

Re-use assessment of thermoset composite wastes as aggregate and filler replacement for concrete-polymer composite materials: A case study regarding GFRP pultrusion wastes

“…Some of the common problems found in the design process of composite materials modified with recycled plastics arise from the lack of bond between the resin matrix and the recyclates (Wong et al, 2012). This weakness, previously reported in several research studies focused on the feasibility of GFRP waste incorporation into new composite materials (DeRosa et al, 2005a;Jutte and Graham, 1991;Rikards et al, 1994), was also detected in the previous experiments of Ribeiro et al (2011). In order to prevent this undesirable feature, the effect of the incorporation of a silane based adhesion promoter was also investigated and considered as a material factor.…”

“…Previous studies recently carried out by the present research group (Ribeiro et al, 2011) have highlighted the high potential of mechanically recycled GFRP wastes, generated by the GFRP pultrusion industry, as reinforcement and partial substitutes of fine aggregates on polymer concrete (PC) materials.…”

Sustainable waste recycling solution for the glass fibre reinforced polymer composite materials industry

“…Siliceous foundry sand (SP55, Sibelco Lda), with a rather uniform particle size between 50 lm and 850 lm, and an average diameter of 245 lm, was used as sand aggregate. Additional information concerning the particle size distributions of GFRP waste recyclates and sand aggregates can be found in Ribeiro et al [27].…”

“…Previous studies carried out by the present research group [27], highlighted the potential of using recycled GFRP wastes from the GFRP pultrusion industry as reinforcement and partial substitute of fine aggregate in polymer concrete (PC) materials. These high-performance concrete materials are cementless concretes in which an organic thermoset polymer, usually an acrylic, epoxy or unsaturated polyester resin, is applied as a binder matrix for the aggregates [28].…”

On the Recyclability of Glass Fiber Reinforced Thermoset Polymeric Composites towards the Sustainability of Polymers’ Industry

“…Recycling and waste encapsulation constitutes nowadays the new and emerging branch market for PCs. Regardless of the relative large amount of research work undertaken on the incorporation of recycled wastes in polymer based concretes, until now, few studies have focused on the incorporation of GFRP recyclates into PCs [5,[8][9][10][11][12]. The outputs of these few research works have highlighted the added value of this recycling solution, revealing that the incorporation of mechanically recycled GFRP wastes into PC materials is a viable technological option for the sustainability of the GFRP composite materials' industry [5,[8][9][10][11][12].…”